Asian Water Cycle Initiative (AWCI)
Description
There is a rapidly growing concern about the
common water issues, including flood and landslide, drought and water scarcity, water pollution
and environmental degradation, climate change
impacts, in Asia.
Based on the regionally common and sharable
ideas on the water-related issues in Asia and their
natural and socio-economical backgrounds, a well
coordinated regional challenge, “Asian Water
Cycle Initiative (AWCI) Contributing to GEOSS”,
has been organized in cooperation among the 18
countries in Asia based on the series of discussions since 2005 just after the GEO established.
Common Issues on Water Cycle in Asia
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The AWCI develops Integrated Water Resources
Management (IWRM) approaches for addressing
the various water-related issues in Asia comprehensively and effectively and for promoting to
share timely, quality, long-term information on
water quantity and quality and their variation
as a basis for sound decision making of national
water policies and management strategies.
The objectives for AWCI are defined as follows:
• to develop Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approaches;
• to share timely, quality, long-term information
on water quantity and quality, and their variation as a basis for sound national and regional
decision making;
• to construct a comprehensive, coordinated and
sustained observational system of systems,
such as prediction systems and decision support
capabilities, under the GEOSS;
• to develop capacity building for making maximum
use of globally integrated data and information
for local purposes as well as for observation
and collecting data.
AWCI discussions at the series of meetings
The AWSI is a new type of a scientific challenge. Its uniqueness is described as follows:
• Effective combination of the architecture and data and the capacity building;
• Advanced data infrastructure availability including a river basin meta-data registration system,
a data quality control interface, and data-integration and downscaling methods;
• A clearly described data sharing policy agreed among the participating countries;
• Strong linkage among science communities, space agencies, and decision makers;
• Well coordination between the research communities and operational sectors with clear strategy
for shifting scientific achievements to operational use;
• Effective cooperation with WCRP/CEOP and IGOS-P/IGWCO.
Observation Convergence
Data Interoperability and Data Integration
Added value
GEOSS/AWCI can directly contribute to the water issue of the UN MDGs and the paragraph 25 and 27 of
the WSSD Plan of Implementation.
Relevant to GEO
“Improving water resource management through better understanding of the water cycle” is one of the
nine societal benefit areas of GEOSS. AWCI will directly contribute to WA-06-02, WA-06-07, WA-07-01,
WA-07-02 and DA-07-06.
Participants
• National hydrological and meteorological departments and of services of 18 countries in Asia including
GEO Members; Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand.
• Projects and activities of international organizations including GEO Participating Organizations; APN,
CEOS, IGOS-P, UNESCO, UNU, WCRP
Current Status and Next Step
Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam have already started preliminary studies for implementation.
The meeting schedule in 2007 is as follows:
• The International Coordinating Group Meeting, Bali, September 2007
• The 3rd Water Cycle Symposium, Beppu, December 2007 (to be held under the framework of the AsiaPacific Water Forum)
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